Shaped Steel Market Price Rises in Tokyo and Osaka

Shaped steel market price continues to rise in Japan. Around Tokyo, H-beam market price surged by 1,000 yen to 65,000 yen per tonne from last week. Dealers are raising the reselling price when Nippon Steel raised the selling price by 8,000 yen at the beginning of this year and other makers followed the hike. The market price also increased by 2,000 yen to 75,000 yen per tonne for equal angles and by 2,000 yen to 77,000-78,000 yen for channels. Equal angle and channel prices are surging around Osaka, too.

A large dealer source around Tokyo says they raises H-beam reselling price to 70,000 yen this week. Meanwhile, some dealers are trying to fix the reselling price at 65,000 yen at first and raise the price to 67,000-68,000 yen step by step.

H-beam distributors are in the red due to rising cost price. Tokyo Steel Manufacturing’s H-beam selling price is 69,000 yen and higher than the market price by 4,000 yen. Tokyo Steel is likely to announce the additional hike since ferrous scrap price is increasing. H-beam dealers are hurrying to pass the high cost on their reselling price.

Around Osaka, equal angle market price reached 74,000 yen per tonne and channel market price 77,000 yen. The distributors are trying to reflect high cost price on the reselling price when shape steel makers raised the price for 2 consecutive months. Speculative demand after the makers’ price hike announcement settled down in the first half of March. The actual demand maintains slow. Meanwhile, some local dealers seem to keep stable orders for restocking.